Lightning vs. Canucks: Nikita Kucherov Scores Twice as Tampa Bay Erases a Two-Goal Hole

Nikita Kucherov does not need an engraved invitation. Hand him a rebound on the power play and a clean faceoff win, and he will turn a two-goal deficit into a tie game before you finish your nachos.

That is exactly how Saturday afternoon went at Benchmark International Arena. Kucherov scored twice in a span of 4:53 in the second period, Jake Guentzel put Tampa Bay ahead for good early in the third, and the Lightning came back to beat the Vancouver Canucks 4-2 in front of 19,092 fans.

Vancouver Builds a Lead, Then Watches It Melt

The Canucks showed up in Tampa at the tail end of a six-game road trip that had produced zero wins, and for a while it looked like the final stop might be different.

Linus Karlsson opened the scoring at 15:32 of the first with a slap shot from the top of the right circle, with Paul Cotter and Filip Chytil drawing the assists. Early in the second, Brayden Point went to the box for tripping Jonathan Lekkerimaki, and Vancouver cashed in. Dennis Hildeby stopped a Lekkerimaki one-timer, but Elias Pettersson gathered the loose puck and squeezed a shot in from the goal line at a nasty angle at 4:35. That was the 65th power-play goal of his career, tying Greg Adams for 10th most in Canucks history, according to NHL.com.

A 2-0 road lead for a team that badly needed one.

Then Liam Ohgren hooked J.J. Moser at 5:35, and the whole afternoon tilted. Less than a minute later, Kucherov let one go from the right circle, Kevin Lankinen made the first stop, and Kucherov buried his own rebound at 6:30 to make it 2-1. Brandon Hagel and Guentzel got the helpers.

At 11:23, Point won a draw and pulled it right back to Kucherov on the left side, and Kucherov wasted no time ripping a snap shot past Lankinen. Two goals, 4:53 apart. Tie game, and suddenly the Canucks were the ones hanging on.

The Turning Point: A Stick in the Wrong Place

If you want to know how a seven-game skid feels from the inside, look at the winning goal. Just 2:04 into the third period, Charle-Edouard D'Astous slid a pass off the wall to Guentzel at the point, and Guentzel let it rip. The puck clipped Ohgren's stick on the way through and changed direction just enough to leave Lankinen stranded. 3-2 Tampa Bay.

Ohgren had a rough day in a very specific way. His hooking minor fed the first Kucherov goal, and his stick blade redirected the winner.

Moments after the go-ahead goal, Victor Hedman and Brendan Gallagher got tangled up and headed to the box together on offsetting minors, a decent read on the temperature of the game. Tampa Bay never let it get close to boiling over, though.

Pontus Holmberg slammed the door at 15:57. Zemgus Girgensons won an offensive-zone faceoff, Holmberg pounced on the loose puck, walked in front and beat Lankinen through the pads for a 4-2 cushion. The scoresheet lists the goal as unassisted, which feels a little rude to Girgensons, but the official scorer does not take requests.

"Even when it was 2-0 for them, I thought we deserved maybe a better result," D'Astous said. "But we just kept playing and I think the best team won tonight."

Kucherov Is in His Shooter Era

Kucherov's line was simple and devastating: two goals in 20:40 of ice time, one on the power play and one at even strength. The two points pushed his career total to 1,134, tying Marian Hossa for 65th in NHL history, per NHL.com.

He was not exactly overthinking it afterward. "We stuck to the system and put pucks to the net," Kucherov said. "Good things happened."

His coach was more effusive. "He really has that shooter's mentality going on right now and I love it," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said.

Point turned in a quiet redemption arc. His tripping penalty set up Pettersson's goal, and then he assisted on Kucherov's tying goal and Guentzel's winner, going 6-for-8 on faceoffs in 17:06. Guentzel finished with a goal and an assist, and the faceoff dominance went well beyond Point. The Lightning won the circle 33-20, and Cooper made it clear that was no accident.

"(Face-offs) were clearly a point of emphasis for us tonight, and they did a good job tonight," Cooper said.

Hildeby only had to make 12 saves, which tells you how lopsided the shot clock became. Tampa Bay held Vancouver to 14 shots on goal for the entire game.

On the other side, Lankinen did plenty to keep Vancouver in it, stopping 31 of 35 shots. Karlsson and Pettersson both scored, but 14 shots on goal is not a recipe for winning many hockey games, and Karlsson did not sugarcoat it.

"They had so many Grade-As, I don't think we helped the goalie enough," Karlsson said.

Stats That Matter

• 35-14: Tampa Bay's edge in shots on goal. Vancouver turned 14 shots into two goals, which is efficient right up until it is not enough.
• 33-20: The Lightning's advantage in the faceoff circle, a 62.3 percent clip that led directly to two goals.
• 4:53: The window in which Kucherov wiped out the 2-0 deficit.
• 1,134: Kucherov's career points, now tied with Marian Hossa for 65th all time.
• 0-6-1: Vancouver's record during its seven-game losing streak.

What It Means

Tampa Bay improves to 6-2-0 with 12 points and stays perfect at home at 5-0-0. The Lightning have won two straight since a loss at the Rangers, and Hagel, who assisted on the first Kucherov goal, now has points in six of his past seven games, with six goals and five assists in that stretch, per NHL.com. Next up is a trip to Vegas on Tuesday.

Vancouver falls to 2-7-1 with five points and has lost seven in a row. The road trip ends at 0-5-1, and according to the AP, this was the second straight game in which the Canucks let a 2-0 lead get away. That is a pattern, not a fluke, and Canucks coach Manny Malhotra pointed at the details rather than the bounces. "Getting in shot lanes, being tougher around our net, face-off details," he said. The Canucks head home to host Carolina on Tuesday.

Closing Take

Two straight 2-0 leads, two straight losses. Vancouver's October is starting to feel like a Groundhog Day remake nobody asked for, where the alarm goes off and the lead disappears again. Malhotra put it best: "We continue to learn the lesson the hard way that when you don't do those things, pucks end up in the back of your net."

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Game details from the Associated Press; postgame quotes and notes as reported by NHL.com.